


Guilt And Shadows

by TheFamousFireLadyM



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: #1 dad daud, F/M, Flashbacks, High Chaos Emily Kaldwin, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Low Chaos Daud, Medium Chaos (Dishonored), My First Work in This Fandom, Not Canon Compliant, Parent Daud (Dishonored), Post-Low Chaos Ending, not an au, obviously, welcome to hell - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 16:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11108379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFamousFireLadyM/pseuds/TheFamousFireLadyM
Summary: "When I killed the Empress, stole the girl, something inside me broke."Daud regrets everything, but the blood on his hands will never wash off no matter what.a funny little play around with canon





	1. Chapter 1

He had killed her. Even if it had been against his wishes, his deepest feelings. Jessamine came at him in self defense - his palm still stung where he had hit her, as if the act itself hurt more than the blow - and he slew her where she stood, pressed against the edge of the gazebo. An intimacy he no longer was allowed, the grate of metal against her ribs sending shockwaves through his hand. She looked betrayed, her eyes met his - as if she knew just what had happened. He could hear her voice as if she had spoken to him herself.  _ You lied. You broke your promise.  _

His thoughts turned to the girl. She should have been his by rights. Same dark hair, same eyes as the Empress whose cooling corpse lay on the marble, her own blood pooling beneath her. "Take her away. The Pendletons have plans." 

The assassin steeled himself for what he knew was to come. Corvo would know, he'd find him. Maybe it was just he would end his life on the blade of the man whose heart he just shattered, the way his own threatened to. The girl tried to scream for her mother and one of his men hit her hard on the cheek with a gloved hand. He wasn't sure which one, not looking their direction until he snapped, catching them in the act. "Don't hurt her! Do you want to be paid?" 

Emily sulked, staring at him. A red welt had begun to raise on one cheek. The assassin still held one of her arms twisted above her, keeping the child immobile. "Let go of her. You should know how to do this." With an impetuous sound she was released and dropped to her knees. A ragged sob tore its way out of her; emily held her hands clasped close to her chest. 

Daud reached a hand out to her. "Do you know who I am?" 

"N-no... should I?" Her eyes were wide, streaks of tears cutting swathes across her cheeks. 

"No. That's good." 

She took his hand and stood, still knock kneed and sobbing. Her short pants tore at the knee, she scraped herself when she fell. 

Daud bit his tongue, holding every single thing he wished he could say inside. "Emily, you're coming with us." 

"To where?" She turned back to look at the assassins, and then the direction where she knew her mother's corpse was. "What about Corvo--" A gasp left her lips and Daud took that opportunity to knock her out, a thick arm wrapping around her delicate little throat. When she fell limp in his arms, he hoisted her easily onto his shoulder. The child's head hung down against his chest. Her breathing settled, and the sound in his ear sent a painful tightness into his ribcage. Daud turned back to his apprentices. "Let's go. Before the Lord Protector wakes up." 

Each produced a popping sound as they blinked out of there, til it was simply Daud with his own girl on his shoulder and the woman he once loved lying in the shadows of the empire. He couldn't give her his last regards, not now on borrowed time. Daud turned his head away, eyes closed. In a moment, he too vanished into thin air.

The deal was pulled off without a hitch. The Pendletons had their girl, the Lord Protector was rotting in prison, and no one was the wiser. Dunwall was entirely thrown into mourning. There was even a funeral procession through the streets, albeit a subdued one due to the plague. Daud had found his way there to watch from the rooftops. In a way it was more intimate than anything else. He found himself talking to her out loud, even as her body was carted to its resting place.

His heart ached, a gloved hand pressed to his chest, fingers curling over his belt. He knew forgiveness was out of his grasp, not even a light on the horizon. Corvo would draw his blade and plunge it through his chest. The Void was more than he deserved. Even then there was a chance he would see her again, even if it were a trick committed by the black eyed bastard. Forgiveness was not something he ever deserved. 


	2. Chapter 2

"The Lord Protector is far from here. He won't return for months." Jessamine had called, draping her arms over his shoulders. Daud smelled her perfume, gardenia and the heady aroma of summer, and he allowed her to reel him in closer, his head spinning. This had happened, before, long long before he plunged cold steel into her belly. Why had the void given him this memory to revisit? "You are a dangerous man, Daud. I like that. You know how to appreciate the most important things in life." 

"Mm, and your protector doesn't?" 

"I wouldn't say that. He's simply not here." Jessamine drew her lips closer to his jaw, peppering little kisses to his cheek. 

"Then what--" 

She kissed him, deep, as if she couldn't get enough. 

"You carry yourself like him." She lifted his hand, clasping it in hers. "Your hands are callused the way his are."

"Swordwork." He answered, closing his hand slowly around hers. 

"I like a man who is good with his," her eyes traveled the length of him, her gaze pausing between his legs so her entendre didn't go missed, " _ sword _ ." 

"You flatter me. For you to compare me to the Lord Protector."

"Hm, no. This. This is different." She tapped his hand with a shining fingernail. "Do you really believe in this? Witchcraft?" 

"Where I come from, it isn't so different from devoting yourself to any other holy order." 

She smoothed her fingers over the surface of the mark. "Does it hurt?"

"No." He lied, turning his hand over and taking hers in his. 

"Corvo would never willingly go through with that." She glanced his way, "All men can be killed, witchcraft or no." 

"Of course." 

If Daud focused hard enough he was convinced this did not sound like the Empress. He could not see a trace of black in her eyes, but even so, he felt the void flowing it's way into everything. The outsider was here, even if it didn't seem like it.

He sat on the edge of the bed, dressing once more. 

"Promise me this. Even if someone offers you more gold than there is in all of Tyvia, I don't want you to be the one to kill me." 

"No one would want you dead. Everyone loves you."

He stopped himself before adding:  _ I love you.  _

"That's a naive thought, especially coming from the most feared assassin in all of Dunwall." 

"I promise." 

She inhaled sharply behind him, wearing only her sheets, her arms tightening around her middle. "You swear. On your life." 

"On my life, on your life, on the life of your future children." Daud flexed his fingers, feeling the Outsider's mark burn where it was. 

Jessamine opened her mouth to make a comment on the life of her future children, when Daud stood. "Your royal protector should be home within the week. I'll not return again." 

"I understand.” She gave him a tender smile. “Thank you, Daud. For relieving the loneliness of your Empress, for seeing me as any other woman, for loving me the way you did. Perhaps life will lead our paths together again." He looked back at her for a glimpse before he vanished out the window and that was when he saw her eyes were black. He forced his eyes closed tight and then in an instant the air felt different, cold around him. 

He was back at the gazebo. This wasn't the void, it was just a dream. But what a dream it was. 

Daud took a step, then another before he realized what he was doing. 

"Daud?" Jessamine turned where she was, leaning against the railing. She looked the way she did when he last saw her as she should have been, ten years ago, before motherhood had changed her. He'd pulled his arm back, recognizing the sword in his hand as not his own. It was a simple thrust through her abdomen, no resistance as if she was made of shadows. The Empress remained impaled on the sword as if she were a rat on a spike, still writhing and arching in a futile attempt to get free. He closed his eyes for just a moment, and then the sharp cold pain of a sword burst in his chest and he saw the tip of his own sword come out through his heart, his lifesblood blooming around it. Daud turned as he fell, to see who struck the killing blow. There was no one there. It was only he and the Empress alone in the gazebo, surrounded by silence on all sides.

He awoke with a gasp, sitting up where he lay. Thomas was there, crouching at his window. 

"You were having a nightmare. Everyone could hear you." 

Daud's hands gripped tighter into fists, and he looked down at himself. His chest still ached where the sword passed through. 

"Still think the Lord Protector is coming back to finish you off? I didn't expect him to let you live like that."

Daud sat up at once, head still spinning. He could still smell her gardenia perfume, lingering alongside the non-scent of the void, like ozone and cold. "Living is a far worse punishment to me." 


	3. Chapter 3

 

"Emily." A voice like gravel called to her, one she thought she recognized. The Empress turned to face him, collar pulled up close to her face to keep out the cold. 

"The Knife of Dunwall, they called you." Her own voice was soft, thoughtful. "I remember you well, Daud." 

"You've taken his place. It's a dangerous route." 

She did not deign to respond to his accusations. "No less dangerous than being Empress." 

"True enough, if the Empress is you." 

"You speak to me as if you didn't kill my mother. Do you think I have forgiven you for what you did to her?" Her hands tightened at her sides. "You.. you..  _ monster _ ." 

"There are names I deserve, Emily. I know I've done you more ill than you ever should have faced. I'm giving you your chance; kill me now and make it right. Or is patricide, even unwitting, one sin too heavy for you to bear?" Daud closed his eyes, letting her get a good glimpse of the Outsider's mark on his hand. He was unarmed.

"Did you think it simply coincidence both I, Corvo and yourself have been touched like this?" 

There was a beat of silence between them, before Emily's eyes widened in realization.

"I'm only surprised you didn't discover sooner. I'm sure the Outsider hinted at least." 

She shook her head. "Why, then? Did you love her?" 

"The answer isn't necessary. She's dead." 

"Because you killed her! If you are what you say you are, you had to have cared even a little." 

"It doesn't matter what I say. She's not around to hear it."

"She was a good woman, kinder than the city deserved." 

"I hear Dunwall still hasn't recovered." 

A tired sigh left her lips. "No, it hasn't. Neither has my fa--- neither has Corvo."

"You can call him that. I don't mind. He was a better father to you than I ever could be. He didn't kill the Empress, after all."

Emily flinched at the harshness of his words. "He killed others. He could have killed you." 

"But he didn't. For some reason or another, he showed mercy."

"The only time he would. Every single other person he came across he blindly slaughtered. You're the lucky one."

"Your definition of lucky must be different from mine."

That elicited a quick little bark of a laugh that escaped before she could stop it.

"The Outsider doesn't show himself to me anymore. I lost favor with the black eyed bastard at the same time Corvo gained it." 

"He expected you to die at Corvo's hand. Everyone else did."

"For an omniscient deity outside of space and time, he has a very narrow view. If he could see everything, he had to have seen a life where I survived and end up where I am now."

"Sometimes he ignores outcomes he doesn't like. Doesn't even mention them as options." 

Daud shifted in his spot. 

"He chose me because Corvo interested him." 

"He was curious how the child of one assassin raised by another would fare. I see he's probably not disappointed. Cutting a swathe of bloodshed wherever you go, are you?" 

"As if you could say any different."

"I haven't killed anyone since Jessamine." Daud shook his head. "That was my last job, I'm done with that line of work. I don't do that anymore."

Emily didn't look at him, flipping her weapon in her hand. 

"Going to kill me then?" Daud lowered his gaze. "Good. Maybe with my death you'll solve something you couldn't have with me in the way."

“You knew.. About Delilah.” That got his dark eyes to flick right back to her face. 

“Your father never asked. I thought--” He considered his next words. “I thought she wouldn’t be able to return after that.” 

“No.” She spoke examining her blade. “I killed her. For good.” 

“And what of the heart?” 

Emily's eyes widened, “How did you--” 

“A long time ago, your father,  _ Corvo  _ drifted into my little city. Poisoned and left for dead by the loyalists, men he considered his friends.” 

Emily shifted, expression showing recognition of the events, yet still impassive, silent. 

“I knew he was out for blood, out for revenge.” Daud looked at his hands. “I took everything from him but the heart.” 

“Why did you leave it?” 

“Smelled black magic from a mile away, knew the outsider was involved. I know better than to get on his bad side.”

Emily crossed her arms, listening. 

“I held her in my hands for the last time that night, knowing Corvo would escape, expecting a blade through the gut. Expecting to know what she felt when I killed her.” 

“She would never forgive you.” Emily spit, launching toward him. Her blade was at his throat in an instant. “Same as I.”

He didn't blink. “I hadn't thought she would. I'm not asking for forgiveness.” 

She stared, then let the blade drop an inch. He reached up to rub his throat, smearing a tear of blood that rolled down the side where her blade nicked his skin. 

“I spoke to her for hours. Never truly got a response, as if she had left me when my blade left her.” 

“You didn't dese--” 

“I  _ know _ I didn't deserve any word from her,” Daud's dark eyes flashed dangerously but in an instant that wicked bloodthirst was gone, replaced by the same dull look he'd been wearing. “As the sun began to set i knew Corvo was going to wake, and so did she. The heart trembled in my grasp, pulsing intently. I'll remember what she said next for the rest of my days as I placed her heart back into the hands of her beloved protector; In another life we could have been happy. I hope to meet you again, if we have that chance.” 

Emily's gaze sharpened and her blade rose again. “That is a lie.” 

“Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. Doesn't change your parentage.” 

“You loved her.” Emily said at last, wondrously. Her blade drew from his throat and she looked at him for a long moment. “Coin means more to you than love, is that it?” 

“If I had refused, someone worse would have taken my place. You would not be standing here in front of me.” 

Emily's expression hardened. “Maybe so, but knowing you were still out there, breathing air that my mother deserved to breathe once more, living life my mother deserved more than you did. I hated you. I still _ hate _ you.” 

“I do deserve it. Perhaps that is my role, to be hated. Billie resented me, hated me, and she left me years ago.” 

“She left me too. Left me knowing you were out there, alive when you deserved to die a thousand times.” 

Daud's eyes narrowed. “She's looking for me, I expect.” 

Emily opened her mouth to speak, to tell him how Meagan had let her in, how she had loved her for many nights, but she couldn't gather her voice. 

“I should kill you now.” Her voice wavered, and Daud regarded her with a cold stare. “She would never find you, or if she did, she would know it was over.” 

“Is that what brings you to Serkonos once more; killing  _ me _ or finding  _ her _ ?”

Emily's fingers tensed on the handle of her blade, and she considered his words, tilting her head away. “I hadn't thought I would see you here, but this is where Meagan fled to.” 

“Of course.” Daud answered. “Kill me then, if that is your intent.” His gaze fell, and all he heard was the clatter of her sword and then nothing. He raised his eyes, only to take in the empty winding alleyway and the swiftly fading dusk. Their paths would inevitably meet again, just as it always would. 

**Author's Note:**

> so this is that fic i wrote most of when i was asleep at like 3 am. that explains everything.


End file.
